Dominion Theatre restored to former glory with Van Damme

The Dominion Theatre in London recently completed a multimillion-pound, four-month refurbishment project which saw it restored to its original 1920s grandeur. Over £500,000 was spent upgrading the technical infrastructure using over 36km (22mi) of Van Damme cabling from VDC Trading, supplied by Edmundson Electrical of Greenwich.

Included in the technical refurbishment was a brand-new stage (pictured), a complete overhaul of the entire stage electrical system, the installation of a new flying system and a new stage lift.

As most of the productions bring their own sound system and lighting, attention was paid to installing a comprehensive network for video, sound, data, dimmers, patch panels and lighting looms. Cable used included Van Damme Cat-6 Data and Digilog cable, a variety of Van Damme LSZH (low smoke zero halogen) video and speaker cabling and, from the VDC trading Fibre-optic lab, over 6,000m of both four- and 16-core fibre-optic cable together and an array of connectors and interfaces.

The Van Damme cable was specified by consultant Mark Bradbrook. “We did some research and spoke to our various wholesalers," he explains, "and, because of the size and prestige of the project, we wanted to only install recognised cable with an industry benchmark for quality and reputation – and Van Damme came out on top each time.

"Since the completion we have had a few issues with equipment, patch panels and plugs but no issues with any of the installed cable, and there were quite few thousand metres installed.”